London Philharmonic Orchestra

Did Brahms love Clara Schumann, the widow of his mentor? He certainly tried to. After a seemingly irreconcilable argument in September 1868, Brahms wrote to Clara from the Swiss Alps, scribbling a tune he’d heard played by a shepherd boy. ‘High on the mountain, deep in the valley, I greet you’, wrote Brahms, and the shepherd’s tune became the radiant horn-call that soars over the strings in the finale of his First Symphony like sunlight breaking through clouds. Clara inhabits the whole work, in a special musical ‘motto’ woven by Brahms and in the anguished love that seeps into every bar – a total contrast to the trouble-free radiance and joy of Beethoven’s only violin concerto.